To catch a thief: The ongoing dilemma for museums after high-profile heists
Recent raids on museums and galleries have exposed the limits of modern security methods. Andrew Mueller, our presenter for ‘The Foreign Desk’, offers a modest proposal.
Stealing irreplaceable pieces of national heritage should be far harder than it looks. In March burglars broke into the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Parma and made off with three paintings – works by Matisse, Renoir and Cézanne. Last October bandits spirited eight items of France’s crown jewels out of a window at the Louvre, escaping by taking the furniture lift that they had used to gain access.
The Louvre was built as a fortress. Given the valuables that it protects, most would have assumed that it still functioned as one. But enquiries after the heist revealed stunning complacency: 61 per cent of its galleries had no CCTV and the password to access video surveillance turned out to be “Louvre”.
Though it goes without saying that crimes of this sort are reprehensible, audacious art thefts capture the public imagination: films celebrating them are a well-established cinematic genre. If hi-tech security wizardry – from AI crowd-monitoring software to motion detectors – doesn’t deter the boldest thieves, perhaps the people protecting museums could meet them on their own terms. Institutions could rig their premises with booby traps – the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark furnishes ample inspiration. Or there could be an on-site garage full of Vespas to enable staff to give chase. If nothing else, it would all be far more fun for security guards than periodically hissing at patrons to take their backpacks off their shoulders.
For more from Andrew Mueller, tune in to ‘The Foreign Desk’ on Monocle Radio.
